


the fifteenth floor

by Donchushka



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: AU, Fluff, Humor, M/M, i don't know how to tag help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25589458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donchushka/pseuds/Donchushka
Summary: Dan tries to rob an old lady but loses his bran cells, gets called Tevin, and seriously considers moving to Zimbabwe instead.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	the fifteenth floor

**Author's Note:**

> In my google docs, this is called "thievery dumbassery" and that's probably all you need to know.

Dan looked up at the building in front of him. It seemed like a good choice: close to the centre of London but not so much that it would be constantly swarmed by police and regular passersby, in a seemingly good neighbourhood which lowered the chances of stumbling upon three other people doing the same thing he did, and it looked just fancy enough for Dan to be sure that whatever flat he ended up in, he’d find something good. He quickly counted the floors; they ran up to seventeen, with a fire staircase conveniently snaking up between every two flats on the same floor, and Dan really hoped he looked like a lovestruck fool, standing underneath a lonely lamplight waiting for his betrothed to appear on one of the balconies and cast him a look of love and adoration, and not like a cold-blooded robber, creepily staring at the curtained windows trying to choose his next victim, which was, well, exactly what he was doing.

The fifteenth floor it is, Dan decided: only one of the flats on the floor looked lived-in and it didn’t look like anyone was living in the flat directly underneath it, but that would be just too lucky. In addition, judging by the sheer amount of house plants on that fifteenth-floor balcony and a duvet that was drying on the clothing rack, obnoxiously bright even in the middle of the night, that was probably a residence of some sweet old lady that would surely be soundly asleep by now, with the time nearing three a.m. With that image in mind, Dan headed for the fire staircase, ignoring the pang of guilt; he just wouldn’t take any of the priceless porcelain cat figurines that she undoubtedly had.

The building was facing a football field, with a playground and a school hiding behind a small alleyway of trees, which left Dan almost positive that no one was going to sneak up on him from behind and call the police. It also allowed him to take a breather every couple of floors, because for someone whose life sometimes quite literally depended on his ability to run very quickly for extended periods of time he was still horrifically unfit. By the time that he reached the fifteenth floor, he was breathing quite heavily and had to lean on the railings for a few moments to wind down, afraid that he’s going to wake up the entire building if he attempts to break in still snorting like an asthmatic pug. Having caught his breath and made sure that there wasn’t a single soul out on the street below him, Dan flung himself over to the balcony, barely managing to avoid knocking over a cactus, and crouched next to the door in silence. When no sound came, he lightly jiggled the handle, trying to work out how difficult it’s going to be to enter.

To his surprise, the handle gave in immediately and Dan pushed the door open, stepping into what looked like a living room. Sending the latch-lock on the door an amused glare - seriously, who lives in the centre of London and leaves their balcony door unlocked? - Dan looked around, his eyes quickly getting accustomed to the darkness. The room wasn’t big and the couch took up most of it, pushed against the wall in an attempt to create more space, and there was a coffee table with all sorts of clutter on it right next to it. Dan took extra caution to avoid the coffee table, the famous incident of Broken Antique Table Owned By Angry Big Scottish Man Who Hates Robbers still fresh in his mind, and stood in the centre of the room, a light shaped like a paper lantern a dangerous two inches above his head. There was a TV on the wall opposite the couch, but not particularly new or expensive, and there were piles of books and videogames on the shelf underneath it, mixed with scented candles and, for some reason, an occasional sock or two. Dan hummed quietly to himself; this didn’t quite go with an image of a fragile old lady that he’d created in his mind, but she might have been very eccentric or just had a grandchild with unusual sock habits. Opening a few compartments told him that the most prized possession here was a PlayStation, and he sighed, really not wishing to risk it by moving to another room. Maybe if he looked harder, he could make do with one of the priceless cat figurines.

The hallway leading from the living room deeper into the flat was suddenly bright with light, forcing Dan to shield his eyes with his hand.

“Hello?”

Dan knew that the logical solution to the situation was turning around and running to the balcony as fast as he could, not caring about any coffee tables or potted plants that came his way. He’d gotten caught a fair few times, especially when he was just getting started, and always relied on that adrenaline rush of someone walking in on him going through their life savings to get him out of that place as fast as possible. Right now, however, he was stuck to the floor, trying to furiously blink the sudden blindness away from his eyes, and when the world around him stopped being a blur of white and yellow circles, it was already too late. Someone was standing at the door.

A guy approximately Dan’s age and around his height was squinting at him through his glasses, as if his eyes were also trying to adjust to the sudden surge of light. He was barefoot, wearing the most ridiculous emoji pyjamas that Dan’d ever seen, and his black fringe was messily pushed up from his forehead. He didn’t look sleepy at all; in fact, he was holding a mug - a One Direction mug, to be more precise - that immediately filled the room with the smell of instant coffee and generally looked like he wasn’t going to bed for at least another couple of hours.

Dan’s brain chose this particular moment to make a particularly unhelpful observation that the guy was extremely cute.

“You’re not an old lady,” Dan said dumbly.

The guy stared at him, confusion creating a crease between his brows, and let out a surprised laugh. “Wasn’t one last time I checked. What are you doing here?”

“Uhh…” Dan trailed. _I’m robbing you so would you be so kind as to point me in the direction of the most expensive thing in your home and leave me alone with it for about five minutes, thanks?_

Dan’s guilt must’ve finally become apparent on his face because the realisation flashed in the guy’s eyes. “Oh, I see. Am I interrupting?”

This whole situation was ridiculous. Dan was supposed to be long gone, clutching the PlayStation under his arm and planning on selling it in the morning so he could afford food for the next three days. Instead, he was still standing here, frozen in place, feeling guilty of trying to rob an old-lady-turned-hot-guy and listening to him _apologise_ for preventing Dan from doing that.

“You had your balcony door open,” Dan repeated just as dumbly.

There was definitely amusement on the guy’s face now. “So you decided to just let yourself in?”

“Uhh…” It was certainly not Dan’s finest moment. He didn’t only get caught but also managed to lose all of his brain cells in the process. “I’m gonna go.”

He finally managed to unstick himself from the patch of carpet he got seemingly glued to and rushed to the balcony, colliding with the coffee table on his way. The guy was probably full-on laughing at him, if the noises behind him were anything to go by, so Dan cursed under his breath and limped the rest of the way to the door, sharp pain shooting through his left knee. The only thing left to do was fall face first into a cactus and wait for the police to take him out of his misery.

“Hey, wait,” he heard the guy call behind him but he was already on the balcony and jumped over to the fire staircase, audibly hissing at the pain in his knee. It didn’t feel like anything serious, though, so he quickly headed down, hoping that the guy from the flat wasn’t doing anything smart and rational, like calling the police. Dan didn’t know how to deal with calm people; those who were yelling and screaming and threatening him with a shotgun made sense and he knew how to get out of those situations (mostly) unscathed. People like that guy, however, who observed the whole thing with a glint of laughter in their eyes and attempted to make small talk, threw him off completely and that’s how he ended up unable to move from his spot in their deceptively grandma-like living rooms.

It also didn’t help when they turned out to be ridiculously attractive.

Back on the ground, Dan lifted his head up to look at the flat. There was still light shining through the fifteenth-floor balcony, and he sighed, shaking his head. He’d have to try his luck somewhere else.

***

Dan wasn’t doing this because he was smart. In fact, if he were smart, he would’ve stuck it out with his law degree instead of dropping out one semester in and right now he would be sitting in a fancy office drinking fancy coffee and listening to his fancy secretary tell him what kind of fancy people he’s going to have fancy meetings with. Maybe he would even be helping people like himself, who made the wrong turn somewhere in life and couldn’t figure out how to set things right again. Although, if he did get into some serious trouble one day, he’d never get that kind of lawyer. Knowing his luck, he’d end up with a guy in a tweed suit and with a handlebar moustache telling him about how jail builds character.

So Dan wasn’t smart, which is exactly why he found himself in front of that same building again the following night.

He stared at the fifteenth-floor balcony. The plants were still there but the duvet was gone, making it look just like every other balcony in London. And it really was, with the only difference being that Dan normally didn’t find himself dragged back to the scene of his own crime by some mysterious force, let alone the scene of the crime that he had every intention of committing but didn’t quite manage to.

If he did learn something during the months of doing it, apart from looking at household appliances and immediately knowing which one is going to make him the most money, was to trust his gut. Crawling around dark corners in the middle of the night ready to run at any noise taught him to rely on his instincts more than anything, because there was no denying that primal feeling inside him that somehow always sensed danger way ahead of him. After all, that one time when Dan didn’t listen to it he ended up in the incident of Broken Antique Table Owned By Angry Big Scottish Man Who Hates Robbers, and as he legged it down the stairs with heavy footsteps and threats to pull his intestines out through his ears behind him he promised himself never to ignore that tiny voice in his head ever again. And now that tiny voice brought him here, as if testing his trust, and told him to get back up there and do… what?

Dan knew that he’d be climbing those stairs as soon as he realised where his feet were taking him that night, so he decided that there’s no point in delaying the inevitable and went for the fire staircase after checking that the coast was clear. Besides, the guy had probably learned his lesson and locked the balcony door, so Dan would just check the handle, shrug, and find someone else’s home to break in to. The plan was incredibly easy to follow.

That plan fell through as soon as Dan got on the balcony, still breathing heavily like a constipated goose, and realised that the door wasn’t just unlocked, but also cracked open. He stared at the sliver of black between the whites of the door and the wall. The plan didn’t include that, his night didn’t include that, he should’ve just gone two floors down to some normal family’s balcony and steal all their crazy expensive Macbooks. That would be a smart move, considering the situation, but Dan wasn’t smart so he pushed the door open and stepped into the flat.

There he stalled once again, looking at the already familiar surroundings. There were Pokemon pillows on the couch that he didn’t notice the night before, and the mug left on the coffee table had something that looked suspiciously a lot like Totoro on it. There was a laptop on the other end of the couch, opened but pitch black as if someone left it there for too long or just forgot to charge it. A green t-shirt was added to the mix of candles and socks on the shelf, and Dan walked deeper into the room, his steps soft on the carpet. The laptop felt too much like a trap, and he wondered what his next move was going to be.

“Did you come back to check if I turned into an old lady?”

Dan jumped, his heart racing, and turned to the hallway. The guy was already standing there, leaning against the door frame, his voice just as amused as it was yesterday. He didn’t turn on the lights this time, although there was a bright yellow line on the floor down the hallway that was probably coming to his bedroom, but Dan’s eyes were adjusted to the dark enough for him to see that the guy was still wearing those awful emoji pyjamas but had no glasses on. His arms were folded across his chest, and his overall posture was far too relaxed for someone whose flat was being broken into for the second night in a row.

“You didn’t lock the door again.” Being here reminded Dan that all his brain cells were still scattered everywhere on this living room floor so the least he could do was attempt to pick them up and shove them back into his head. The first full coherent sentence was probably a good start.

“Force of habit. Nothing ever happens,” the guy shrugged. His nonchalance was confusing Dan more than anything else about the situation.

“Something’s happening right now!” Dan stared at him as if trying to convey the seriousness of the situation through the power of eyesight alone. “I could have a bunch of gangsters on your balcony right now for all you know, and you’re pretty much inviting me in!”

“So I invited you and you came in. No big deal,” the guy shrugged again, leaving Dan to open and close his mouth because _well_ , he did. His search for his brain cells was turning out to be fruitless, as his head felt just about as empty as it could be, and when he started deciding between slowly backing up in silence or saying something dumb like _you’re weird but also cute so I don’t really care_ while he still could blame it on the lack of brainpower, the guy spoke again. “How’s your leg?”

“Uhh…” The guy was watching him with amusement in his eyes, like they’ve known each other for years and he asked Dan the most ordinary and mundane question and Dan was just being his awkward tongue-tied self, and Dan’s brain just shortcutted. “Fine. Just a bruise, really. I’m really glad you’re not an old lady. I’m gonna go now.”

The guy was openly giggling at him now, lifting up his hand to cover his mouth, and that was probably another reason why Dan was never going to become a lawyer. He didn’t quite make it to the end of his degree but could guess that being a lawyer would entail talking to people on a regular basis, and whenever he opened his mouth there was always a chance that something like _I’m really glad you’re not an old lady_ was going to fall out. Robbing people pretty much consisted of avoiding having a conversation with them, but Dan was seemingly failing even at that now so he started for the balcony, determined not to show up here again. Hey, maybe he could move to Zimbabwe. He’s heard that in order to talk to people he actually needed to know their language first.

“Wait,” the guy called behind him, making Dan turn to him against his better judgement. “I don’t even know your name.”

Dan shot him an incredulous look. “Forgive me for thinking you’re going to call the police any minute now.”

He was. Just because the guy still hadn’t called the cops didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to come to his senses at any moment and run away screaming about stranger danger. If anything, that’d make Dan sigh with relief and actually force him not to come here anymore.

“I’m Phil,” the guy said, standing up straight, and the laughter was still dancing in his eyes. “I’m not going to call the police and I would really like to know your name because I was calling you Jimothy in my head.”

Dan snorted before he managed to stop himself. “Jimothy? I’m even less inclined to tell you anything right now.”

“Fine,” Phil agreed easily. “How about Tevin? Can you work with Tevin?”

Dan shook his head and turned away, mostly to hide the fact that he was smiling, and stepped into the balcony. “Lock your door, Phil.”

He was already a few floors down the stairs when Phil poked his head out to call, “Bye, Tevin!” looking so pleased with himself that it took all of Dan’s self-restraint not to burst out laughing.

***

This was ridiculous. And what was more ridiculous was Dan steadily climbing the stairs just as he was telling himself that. He had no reason to go; he already knew that Phil was going to be awake and he wouldn’t be able to steal his precious gaming console and run away into the night, smooth and slick as the wind itself, but the steps kept disappearing below his feet until he reached the fifteenth floor. The balcony door was open again, no pretence of the lock, and Dan pushed it open before he could come up with a reason _why_.

Phil was sitting on the couch, one leg tucked underneath him, squinting at his laptop that was the only source of light in the room. Before Dan could start thinking about whether Phil left the lights off on purpose because he was afraid that Dan wouldn’t come into a brightly lit room, Phil lifted his gaze from the screen and smiled.

“You’re back.”

“Yeah.” Honesty was the best policy, and Phil didn’t ask _why_ Dan was back so he didn’t elaborate. “Your door is unlocked again.”

“Yeah,” Phil echoed, his fingers flying over the keyboard. Again, Dan didn’t ask _why_ so it was only fair that Phil didn’t tell him. “I’m sorry, just give me a moment, I really need to finish this.”

This should’ve been Dan’s cue to up and leave, looking up the nearest flights to Zimbabwe, but the majority of his brain cells were still on this very floor, so he said, very eloquently, “Oh. Whatcha doing?”

“Finishing my draft,” Phil explained, his eyes running over the lines on the screen. “I have to send this to my editor, like, _yesterday_ or she’s going to do my head in.”

Dan suddenly felt very awkward. Here was Phil, all adult and attractive in his glasses, doing something that sounded very much like an actual _job_ , his lips moving silently as he read through the page covered in sentences, and what was Dan supposed to say? _Yeah, I bet writing’s fun, but I’m doing something that’s even better and that’s stealing other people’s possessions_?

“Oh,” he said instead, watching Phil save the document and open his email. “Cool.”

“It’s alright,” Phil quickly typed a few words into the email, attached the document, and sent it. He shut his laptop, leaving them in complete darkness, and turned to Dan, smiling. “You can sit down if you want. You feel like an Adalbert today.”

Dan actually laughed at that, his hand immediately flying to his mouth. “What happened to Tevin?”

“You look like your name is Adalbert today,” Phil shrugged, his smile bright even in the dark room. “Unless you want to tell me your real name so I can stop guessing?”

Dan tentatively sat on the corner of the couch. Nothing about Phil made sense, everything he said or did went against some law of logic one way or another; but then again, Dan being here didn’t make sense either, so maybe it was his clue to stop trying to make everything make sense and just go with the flow.

“I’d still rather not let you know,” he said quietly. Not telling Phil his name was the thing that made the most sense and he was going to stick with it for as long as he could.

“Alright, Adalbert, keep your secrets,” Phil grinned, not looking offended in the slightest. “Would you like something to drink? I’m afraid I’m not being a proper host.”

Dan looked at him in disbelief. “That’s what you’re worried about? I’ve tried to rob you three times now, Phil, and you’re concerned with not offering me a drink?”

Phil clutched his chest in mock horror. “So that’s why you keep coming back? Not for the pleasure of my company?” Before Dan could catch enough words rapidly jumping in his brain to string them into a proper sentence, Phil got up from the couch. “I am extremely hurt and storming into the kitchen. So hurt that I’ll do it with my eyes closed. If I come back with tea for you and my couch is missing, I’ll have no one to blame but myself.”

Phil really closed his eyes and started slowly moving towards the hallway. He immediately collided with the door frame, letting out a yelp, but still refused to open his eyes, banging into a wall as well for good measure. Dan couldn’t help but giggle.

“Less giggling, more robbing!” Phil’s voice came from the kitchen. Judging by the commotion he was causing over there, he was still trying to do everything with his eyes closed. “Don’t miss your chance to sneak away with my couch!”

“Maybe that’ll teach you to lock your doors!” Dan called back, still giggling a little. The worst part was, Phil was right: if he did keep coming back here to rob him, this was his chance to just grab everything in sight and run away while Phil was making all sorts of ruckus in the kitchen trying to show that he was actually blindly boiling a kettle. If Dan wasn’t going to do that, he might as well just stop pretending that he was ever going to and that this whole thing was just about making Phil care about basic rules of safety. Dan looked at Phil’s laptop left unobserved on the couch, looking so inviting that it could’ve as well been a bag of sweets, and sighed, getting to his feet. If that spectacle was over, he could just head to that bright stream of light at the end of the hallway to make sure that Phil didn’t burn the kitchen down.

Thankfully, Phil wasn’t trying to attempt anything horrifically unsafe and when Dan got to the kitchen, nearly walking face first into a glass door on his way there, two mugs with tiny strings of tea bags hanging from them were standing on the counter and Phil was watching the kettle, ready to whistle any moment now. When he saw Dan walk in, he clasped his hands over his eyes, pretending he wasn’t looking, and yelped when his glasses dug too deep into his face. There was a plastic vase on the floor, which looked like Phil dropped it there on purpose while making all that noise, and Dan couldn’t imagine ever having another thought of trying to rob this man again.

“I’m not going to steal your couch, Phil.”

Phil peeked at him through his fingers, smiling. “Okay. What do you want to do instead?”

***

Somehow Dan kept finding his way to Phil’s building, and now that he wasn’t telling himself that he was going to leave with one of those house plants on the balcony that Phil seemed to love so much, it was both easier and a lot harder to do. He was still using the fire staircase, even though Phil’d mentioned that he didn’t really need to do this anymore, because it was familiar, and the whole situation felt so strange and foreign that he needed that crutch of familiarity to keep him grounded.

Hanging out with Phil was strange and foreign too, and not just because Dan was sneaking out into his window in the middle of the night like a desperate teenager. Just by existing in his flat with that ridiculously big couch, colourful socks thrown everywhere, and giant vases that he had the audacity to refer to as _drinking glasses_ , Phil was a riddle that Dan couldn’t figure out. They still didn’t know too much about each other: Dan was very careful not to reveal anything about himself, afraid that he’d already revealed too much just by consistently showing up night after night, and Phil seemed pretty content with that, not mentioning anything other than his name and the fact that he was a writer, but even that was more than enough. Phil had a job, he probably had cool artistic friends and a pretty decent life outside his flat, and yet every night at three a.m. he was still there on the couch, waiting for Dan with a cup of coffee in his hands and a smile on his face, and it just _didn’t make sense_. Dan really wanted to ask what was it about this situation that made Phil want to stay up so late and call Dan every ridiculous name under the sun, but asking a personal question meant risking receiving one in return, so Dan kept silent and listened to Phil rant about Studio Ghibli instead.

In just a few short weeks Dan had been called Winston, Gavin, Brado, Leslie, Perry and Geoffrey; sometimes it was enough for Phil to cast one look at him to announce that he’s looking particularly like a Wilfredo that day and sometimes he was getting ready to leave when Phil was telling him, “You behaved like such a Dorean tonight.” Dan long gave up on trying to figure out where Phil was pulling these obscure names from because when he outright asked him, Phil gave him a very simple answer.

“I’m just hoping I’ll guess your name eventually,” he shrugged, curled up on the couch with his coffee. “And you don’t look like a Bill or a Joe, so I have to try something more interesting, like…” Phil squinted at Dan, thinking. “Like Eugene. I hope you’re called Eugene.”

Dan would gladly be Eugene for a few hours if that made Phil happy, and that was another problem. On top of being mind-bogglingly strange and obscenely attractive even in emoji pyjamas, Phil turned out to be _so nice_ that it made Dan daydream about things like holding his hand and getting a dog with him, and the number of times that he nearly walked into a lamppost thinking about Phil’s glasses or Phil’s hair was really too embarrassing to admit.

“Suppose I am called Eugene,” Dan laughed, knowing that he’d never be cool enough for a name like that. “Why do you want to know so bad?”

“I guess it’d just make you more real. Right now every time you leave I’m still not sure if you’re not just a caffeine-induced dream I keep having,” Phil got up from the couch and took an empty mug out of Dan’s hands. “More tea?”

“Okay.” Phil wanting Dan to be real _didn’t make any sense._

One night Dan pushed the balcony door open into Phil’s living room to find it empty. He looked around cautiously, unsure if he should panic because Phil’s disregard for door locks finally caught up with him and some other _proper_ robber just whacked him over the head with something and stole all his scented candles. The room didn’t look broken into and nothing seemed to be missing; there was just a giant dark void on the couch where Phil was usually sitting. The flat was silent, there was no clattering of mugs in the kitchen and no light was coming from underneath the bedroom door; Phil just wasn’t home.

Dan blinked, unsure of where it left him. Somewhere around here his voluntary instincts were supposed to kick in and tell him to clean the place of every somewhat valuable item, sell them on eBay, and live like a king in a remote village in Zimbabwe which sounded just far enough for him not to feel guilty about a thing if he really decided to do it. The surprising thing was, which maybe shouldn't have been so surprising, is that he had no desire to do it, so he just stood underneath the low-hanging paper lantern lamp and felt kind of lost. A yellow post-it note on the coffee table caught his eye, and he came closer to read it.

_Went to my parents. Will return tomorrow. Don’t steal my couch, Vitali. Take cookies from the jar instead._

Phil’s handwriting was like the rest of his flat, messy, all over the place, and overwhelmingly _endearing_. The letters were big and round, crumpled together with smiley faces and tiny cacti drawings, leaving so little space for the actual note that it was almost unreadable. Dan stifled his laughter: apparently Phil spelt _cookies_ like _cockies_ on his first try and didn’t even bother to cross it out properly, just drawing a straight line over the word. It still didn’t make any sense: Phil left the door open for Dan, and just about any other potential burglar that happened to be named Vitali, and his version of keeping his belongings safe came in the form of the world’s tiniest post-it note telling whoever read it to _please_ take the cookies instead.

Nothing about Phil made sense and yet, as Dan was standing alone in the middle of his living room almost wishing he was actually tempted to steal his couch, he’d never felt more real.

***

The following night Dan was nervously pacing in front of the building, not daring to look up. It was really early for him: it was just past ten o’clock, and the streets weren’t as empty as he was used to them being. A mother passed him, pushing a baby stroller in front of her, and he shot her a nervous smile; there was nothing suspicious about it, he was just a guy wearing all black freaking out underneath the windows of another guy that he’d been visiting for the past month by climbing up to his balcony using the fire staircase, and didn’t I tell you that I had every intention of robbing him the first two times? No big deal.

After a few more strides up and down the street, Dan risked taking a look at the fifteenth floor. There was no light on Phil’s balcony but that didn’t mean anything; Phil could be in his bedroom or just sitting with the lights off because it didn’t hurt his eyes as much. The door to the building opened as someone was coming out, and before the thought that he actually _knew_ that about Phil fully settled in his mind, Dan rushed to it under the pretence of being a gentleman and holding it open. As soon as the person left, having grumbled something in his direction, Dan headed for the lift, his heart hammering in his chest.

Once its doors opened on the fifteenth floor and revealed two identical brown doors with numbers 29 and 30 on different sides of the corridor, Dan could only hope that he had enough of his brain cells left for his calculations to be correct. He walked up to the door marked 29 and knocked, barely hearing a sound behind the blood beating in his ears.

The seconds stretched so painstakingly slow that he felt himself on the verge of panic. It was the wrong door, it was the wrong floor, it was the wrong building, and he was about to make a fool of himself in front of an actual old lady and he wouldn’t even have an excuse of coming to steal her priceless cat figurines because he didn’t think he was doing that anymore, and…

The door finally opened, and Phil was behind it, glasses askew and pillow lines on his face, his hair a mess as if he was sleeping now so he could stay awake for something later.

“Hello?” he asked, his voice heavy with sleep, before his eyes widening in realisation.

“Hi,” Dan said hurriedly before he could change his mind. “My name is Dan. I dropped out of law school, I haven’t had a proper job since I was nineteen, and I broke an antique coffee table during an attempted robbery and was chased down the stairs by an angry Scottish man in a kilt once.”

Phil smiled, the soft sleepy features of his face illuminating with it.

“Hi, Dan. Would you like to come in?”


End file.
